13. Sadie
13
SADIE
A t one point I rub my eyes to check if I’m having a fever dream but nope, it’s all real.
The car.
The blood.
The man I’m married to.
“Tell him, Scraps. Tell him who I am.”
At least Cale is alert enough to bear most of his own weight. Otherwise I’d have to go find Peggy’s wheelbarrow to push him into the house.
With Jasper on one side of Cale and me propping up the other, the three of us succeed in staggering through the front door. I’m sure from a distance we look like a slapstick comedy act.
However, there is nothing funny about Cale’s bleeding wound or the fact that his face is roughly the shade of computer paper.
“Take a left,” I pant when we reach the foyer. “The first guest bedroom.”
Jasper, good kid that he is, simply follows orders. Meanwhile, our entrance is attracting all kinds of new attention. Apollo and Zeus, energized by the prospect of a stranger to slobber on, come bounding down the stairs, barking up a storm, as fast as their arthritic legs can carry them.
Now Peggy appears in her latest crocheted granny square shawl. For once, words fail her. She observes us with her mouth open. She must have been in the middle of sweeping because she keeps clutching the wooden handle of a broom as we help Cale to the Halloween guest bedroom where he sits on a bed covered with a pumpkin bedspread.
Cale is awake but I’m terrified by how pale he looks. He’s sitting up, just barely, and my heart shrivels when I get a closer look at all the blood.
“You really need a hospital,” I whisper as I attempt to peel his jacket away.
His eyes roll to me and his breathing is labored. “I said no. Not negotiable, Scraps.”
Well, if he thinks I’m going to just let him bleed out in the Halloween room he’s got another thing coming. I have a million questions but the answers may not be to my liking. If Cale is shot that means someone shot him.
Did he shoot back? Did he kill anyone? Is this a mafia vendetta thing?
Clearly, there’s a reason why Cale refuses to go to a hospital.
I have very limited medical skills but I did take a first aid class when I was a teenager. I don’t remember much but it seems like the first important step would be to stop the bleeding. Everyone’s questions, including mine, will have to wait.
With Jasper and Peggy hovering in shock, I turn to Cale. “You’ll need to take off your shirt,” I tell him.
He nods and get unsteadily to his feet. He starts to peel off his blazer but changes his mind and reaches for something. I’m not sure what happens next but a gun falls to the wooden floor with a clatter and everyone goes bananas.
“It’s a gun!” Jasper yells and throws himself on the ground.
“Get it out of here!” Peggy shouts and tries to attack it with her broom.
Apollo and Zeus bark ecstatically and run back and forth.
Cale removes his jacket, sits back down on the bed and looks disgusted with every single one of us.
I kick to the gun to the corner of the room for now, pick up his jacket and whip out my phone to dash off an urgent text because my first aid skills won’t be enough for this mess.
Emergency. Please come.
The dogs lick Jasper’s face and Peggy helps him up off the floor. Poor kid, he’s looking rather dazed. I can relate.
Cale’s jacket buzzes in my hands and I nearly drop it in fright. He reaches out an arm to snatch it from me and then stops, wincing, obviously in pain.
“Sadie, give me my phone,” he says, more calmly than he has any right to be considering the state of things.
I grope through the jacket’s pockets (why are there so many pockets?) until I find the source of the buzzing. The phone is handed over to Cale and he answers by saying, “Yeah, I’m here.”
He listens to whatever is being said on the other end. The rest of us just kind of stand around and stare at each other. Even Apollo and Zeus take a seat on their back legs and wait for the next exciting incident.
“I’ve got this,” I tell Peggy, who stands in front of a wide-eyed Jasper. She looks like she’s ready strike Cale with her broom if he moves too suddenly.
Slowly, her gaze shifts to me. “This man is a friend of yours?”
“Yes.” I glance at Jasper.
After Cale collapsed, I sort of blurted out that he’s my husband and asked Jasper to help me drag him inside. That’s a lot of weird information in a short span of time. Luckily, Jasper doesn’t say a word. I’m grateful. Right now I don’t have time to explain to the whole world the specifics of my intricate relationship with Cale Connelly.
“His name is Cale and he’s a friend,” I assure Peggy.
Peggy lowers her weaponized broom. Her expression loses its battle ready status. My word is always good enough for her. “I’ll get some towels,” she says, eyeing the blood. “And I’ll brew some tea.”
“That would be great,” I say.
Peggy prods Jasper to follow her down the hall. She whistles and Apollo and Zeus follow, hoping for a biscuit. Within seconds she returns with a pair of clean towels. She doesn’t say a word as she hands them over, asking a silent question with her raised eyebrows.
“I’ll explain later,” I whisper.
She peers over my shoulder and eyes Cale. “He better not try any funny business.”
“He won’t.”
“Do you want to keep my broom just in case?”
“The thought is appreciated but if you could just look after Jasper I’d be grateful.”
Peggy still looks unconvinced and peers at Cale, her nostrils flaring. “You remember to holler if that clown over there gets testy.”
“Oh, I’ll holler all right.”
Peggy withdraws with reluctance and I shut the bedroom door to ensure no one will be in earshot.
Cale’s deep voice murmurs something into the phone and he nods in my direction. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Me?” Dumb question. No one else is here.
“Yes.” He holds the phone out.
I reach for it with a sense of extreme dread. “Hello?”
The man’s voice is overly loud with an extremely thick New York accent. “Oh hey, Sadie. Don’t you worry about anything. I’ve got the best medical team on the way. You just sit tight and take care of our boy.”
Cale removes his mutilated white shirt with a grunt of pain. Under different circumstances I’d be salivating over the sight of his flawlessly sculpted chest but right now there’s a lot going on. Cale balls up the shirt and presses it to the angry looking hole on his lower right side.
“I can do that,” I say into the phone and clear my throat. “But who are you?”
He chuckles. “It’s Richie Amato, your old neighbor. You know what? I remember your mama. She was a looker. You take after her. And you should call me Uncle Richie. We’re family now.”
I have no desire to call him Uncle anything.
“Now put my nephew back on for a minute,” he says.
I hand the phone back to Cale. He listens, grunts in agreement, then tosses the phone aside on the bed. Since he seems more awake than he was a few minutes ago I think it won’t hurt him to clarify some things.
I hug the towels to my chest. “So what happened? Who shot you? And what made you come here of all places? By the way, couldn’t you have at least called to say you were stopping by with a bullet wound?”
Cale doesn’t interrupt while I’m firing questions. He answers calmly. “It was self-defense. I shot back and I shoot a hell of a lot better. When Richie told me to drive here I couldn’t think fast enough to refuse. And I thought if I called while I was on my way I’d wake you up and then you’d be pissed.”
“Oh. Yes, this surprise was so much better. I’m definitely not pissed now. Did you happen to invite any of your mafia friends to hang out here with you? I’m not sure how many towels we can spare.” I look over my shoulder in case they’ve walked into the room while I was preoccupied.
Cale exhales noisily, like all this fuss is a great big imposition on his time. “No, I didn’t invite any friends. I was just lucky enough to wander into an Arizona gas station on the night a couple of dipshits decided to rob it.”
“That’s it?” Not the scenario I was picturing at all.
“That’s it.”
I stare at Cale. He stares back at me. I truly have no clue if he’s telling the truth.
“You need a doctor. You might be bleeding internally. When is that medical team supposed to get here?”
“Soon I think. And I’m not bleeding internally ,” he says in grumpy voice that I’m not too crazy about considering everything he’s putting me through. “Did you see the car keys anywhere?”
“Why? Are you leaving?”
He stands up and sways a little. “I need to get my shit out of there.”
“For heaven’s sake, sit down before you fall over.” For emphasis, I place my palm on his chest. His rock hard wall of a man chest. I remove my hand before it’s tempted to do something weird. I push a towel on him instead. “Take this. I think I felt your keys in your jacket. I’ll get whatever you need from your car.”
He sighs but doesn’t argue as he sinks back onto the bed. He truly looks exhausted, as if in addition to the bullet problem he hasn’t slept in a few days. “I’ve two bags in the trunk. Neither of them are too heavy.”
“I’ll bring them in,” I say. Then I’m struck by a terrible thought. “Is there anything….that I need to worry about?”
“Where?”
“In the car.”
“It’s not stolen for fuck’s sake. It’s a rental.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t find anything horrible.”
He presses the towel to his side and scowls. “We can rummage through my underwear together if it makes you happy.”
“I don’t want to rummage through your underwear. But you show up here all shot and bloody and given your line of work, asking if there’s any excess baggage in your trunk is a fair question.”
“Excess baggage,” he echoes, then throws up a hand in exasperation. “What do you think I did, went out and popped a guy, then left him in my trunk for you to find?”
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss.
He stares at me for a second then he snorts out a harsh laugh that must hurt because he follows it up with a grimace.
“Serves you right,” I say even though my own chest aches at the sight of him in pain. “Now don’t bust a rib laughing again or you’ll probably need a transfusion.”
“You’re a piece of work.” He shakes his head.
“That sounds like an insult.”
“Not at all. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth, Sadie.”
“Well, I never know when you’re going to show up with a bullet hole, Cale, so I guess we’re even.”
“Hey.” He captures my wrist and gazes into my eyes. “I’m truly sorry about all this. I should have found a way to avoid bringing you into this shit.”
He keeps hold of my wrist. I could shake him off with ease and yet I hesitate. In spite of the bizarre circumstances, the touch of his hand has an effect on me. One that I didn’t ask for and don’t want. It’s the same sensation that left me panting and disoriented after our wedding kiss.
Finally, and rather grudgingly, I detach from his grip.
“You’re always welcome here,” I say. “Just do me a favor and call next time. If I wake up tomorrow with a streak of grey in my hair thanks to today’s shock I’m blaming you. Now let’s get you put back together and I’ll think of a way to justify your existence. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I haven’t found a reason to broadcast this marriage thing around here.”
He mulls that over. “Guess I let the cat out of the bag, huh?”
“You let out the cat, the dog, Goldilocks with all three bears, a dozen ducklings and four elephants. Now can we sort this out later? I’ll get your stuff from the car if you agree to sit here quietly and try not to bleed while we wait for that medical team.”
“One last thing,” he says. “I’m not sure what it is you assume I do with my time but I swear I’m not out there collecting dead people to drop into your lap.”
“Cale, I have no idea what you do with your time because you tell me nothing. I’d like to get to know you better and be your friend but that doesn’t seem to be an option.”
A shadow falls over his face and he breaks eye contact. The comment bothers him for some reason.
But why?
He barely spoke to me in Vegas. He ignores most of my texts and updates about the ranch, never answering with more than a few words if he bothers to answer at all. I’ve stopped feeling annoyed, just figuring that Cale Connelly is impervious to the angsty feelings that trouble the rest of us ordinary humans.
Maybe not, though.
Leaving Cale to whatever dark thoughts are swimming around inside his absurdly gorgeous head, I duck out of the room and head over to Peggy’s kitchen. Jasper sits at the table with a snack of tea and sourdough biscuits while Apollo and Zeus lounge at his feet. Peggy shuts off the sink faucet and parks her hands on her hips.
“Do we know how long our guest will be staying?” she asks, intentionally vague, keeping an eye on Jasper.
“We’ll play it by ear,” I say, just as vaguely. “He’s resting right now.”
Jasper wipes his mouth with a napkin. “That was a lot of blood. Is he all right?”
“Just a little accident,” I say. “He’ll be fine.”
“But what about him being your-”
“How about some more biscuits?” Peggy cuts in. “I’ve got scones too. And yesterday I made a batch of fresh blackberry jam.”
Apparently teenage boys are easily sidetracked by food. Jasper is only too happy to forget about Cale’s blood and my marital status as long as he has something new to eat.
Outside the house, everything appears normal. The sky is blue and the air is crisp. A pair of mourning doves are perched on the birdbath beside Peggy’s small kitchen garden. Some of the dogs begin barking with excitement when they hear the crunch of my footsteps. If only they knew how I’d much rather hang out with them than deal with grouchy husbands and gunshot wounds.
In my mind I start making a list of the things that need to be done today. The work on the puppy playground can wait. Cleaning out the cat quarters cannot. I’ll have to ask Peggy and Jasper for help since there’s no telling how long I’ll be busy with this current situation.
I shudder as I flash back to the sight of the hole beneath Cale’s ribs. I really really wish he’d agreed to go to the hospital. Maybe I should have overruled him.
Then I laugh at my own thought. Overruling Cale Connelly is just not in the cards.
Cale’s rental car is exactly where he left it, parked crookedly on the other side of the closed gate. The gate isn’t locked but I guess he didn’t know that. He must have hopped over the split rail fence instead.
After dragging the gate wide open, I decide the best option is to move the rental car out of the way. Getting behind the wheel is a little jarring. Not only because I’m far more accustomed to the roominess of my lumbering old pickup truck but because there are spots of blood on the leather interior.
It feels as if I’m transporting a crime scene as I ease the car very slowly over the driveway leading to the garage. I bet if cars had personalities then this flashy sports vehicle would be laughing at my forlorn old Chevy pickup with rust spots and missing hubcaps but for now the two of them get to be roommates.
There are two bags waiting in the trunk, just as Cale said. One is a shiny black hardshell spinner and the other is a plain black gym bag. The gym bag has kind of a lumpy feel to it but neither are heavy and I’m towing them to the house when I hear the screech of brakes.
Dr. Augusta Edelstein has roared through the gates in her treasured station wagon, which she has overhauled to resemble the distinctive car from the movie Ghostbusters. A cloud of dirt kicks up under the wheels when she comes to an abrupt halt twenty feet away. In all the mayhem I’d forgotten about the urgent 911 text I sent to her.
Gus barely shuts the car off before she dives out of the driver’s seat in her white lab coat, one that was embroidered with black spider webs by Peggy. She nearly topples over in her orange heels when she yanks her heavy patent leather medical bag out of the car but recovers and runs my way.
“Is it the new puppies? The littlest one had some nasal discharge on Thursday. Poor baby. Have you already separated him from the others?” Gus stops and looks me up and down, taking note of the bags I’m dragging. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Nowhere. The puppies are fine. All the animals are fine. I panicked and I dashed off that text in a hurry. I’m so sorry.”
Wisps of Gus’s dark hair have chaotically escaped from a giant clip shaped like a bat. Knowing my best friend, she dropped everything and burned rubber to get here. By the time I’m finished making all the apologies I need to make, I pray that she forgives me.
“What’s really going on?” She pushes her purple-framed glasses up her nose and starts looking around with suspicion as if the explanation might be listed on a billboard somewhere. She pauses and squints. “Is that BLOOD on the fence?”
“Probably.”
I hadn’t noticed the streak of red on of the fence rails. It must be Cale’s. Either that or there’s an epidemic of wounded creatures converging on Bright Hearts today.
I let out a sigh. “I’ll give you a quick summary on the walk back to the house. Bring your medical bag. And please don’t scream at me. My head already hurts.”